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Helping Does Not Help…

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We need to stop being helpful.

Trying to be helpful and giving advice are really just ways to control others.

Advice is a conversation stopper…we should substitute curiosity for advice.

Do not tell people how you handled the same concern in the past.  Do not immediately offer the text book solution to the problem – unless you want to kill creativity, enquiry and insight.

Do not ask questions that have advice hidden in them, such as “have you ever thought of talking to the customers directly?”

Often people will ask for advice. The ‘request for advice’ is how we surrender our independence. If we give in to this request we have affirmed their dependnece on us; their belief that they do not have the capacity to create the world from their own resources; and more importantly, we have supported their escape from their own freedom.

For more on this I would recomend almost anyhtingby Peter Block – but especially:

Community – The structure of belonging – Peter Block

“One of the basic elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is prescription. Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness.”

Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Friere

“It was wonderful! Incredibly powerful – just to be listened to.”

Participant on an Introduction to Enterprise Coaching Programme.

Enterprise Evangelist or Enterprise Coach?

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Enterprise Evangelist Enterprise Coach
Entrepreneurship is a good thing – you should try it. Entrepreneurship is neither good not bad.  For some people it is a wonderful life affirming experience.  For others an unmitigated disaster.
We can turn your ideas and dreams into reality. You can make progress in getting the kind of life that you want.  My sole purpose is to offer you the help and support that you need on your journey.
We need to increase the start up rate if we are to change the enterprise culture in this community. We need to help more people believe that they can take action to make things better -in whatever ways matter to them.
We encourage people to start business quickly.  That helps us to keep up with our contract outputs – and anyway you don’t really learn about business until you are in it – do you? We help clients start business slowly, if at all.  We make sure that they have done as much planning, research and training as possible before they start and got a strong management team in place to reduce the risks of failure.  If they have an alternative to starting a small business we encourage them to consider it – SERIOUSLY!  We understand just how hard small business can be.
We spend a lot of money on publicity and events to attract large numbers (we wish!) to use the service. We spend almost nothing on publicity.  Instead we focus on building a great reputation (we know how to do this) and then encourage word of mouth strategies, referrals and clients telling their stories to gradually build interest.
We usually start with a bang – but numbers quickly tail off – unless we keep the marketing spend up.  We refer clients into mainstream business support or other sources of support as soon as we can.  Our job is just to get them engaged. We start slowly and build exponentially as our reputation spreads.  Within 12 months we would expect top be seeing 200 people a year with about 10% of them going on to start a new business.  Because of our reputation we also get some existing business wanting to talk with us – but that is ok because we know how to help them too!
We do all we can to keep people engaged with our service.  We pay bus fares, pick them up in our cars, provide child care and food to make it easy. We do little to keep people using the service – other than help them build their confidence and self belief in what they can achieve when they work with us.
We don’t mention business failure rates.  If we start enough – surely some of them will survive? We monitor survival rates more closely than start up rates.  We understand that it is business failures that establish a fear of enterprise and do most to damage an enterprise culture.
We design and deliver our services and interventions to deliver policy goals for number of interventions and start-ups We design and deliver our services with the client needs at the centre of things.  Our service is free of charge, competent, compassionate and easy to access.
We believe that primarily our clients need help to develop their ideas from a technical point of view.  It is all about the business plan.  The sooner we can refer them onto a technical expert – such as a business adviser the better. We believe that the idea and the business plan is one small aspect of our work.  More important is helping the client to develop their skills and their passion and commitment towards making real progress in their lives.  Understanding psychology is just as important as understanding business.  We develop the people – so that if they want they can develop their business ideas.
I don’t need to build a strong relationship – I just need to find people and refer them to mainstream business advisers. It is the quality of my relationship with you that dictates how useful it is.

The Idea Obsession

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Do you have a fantastic business idea?

Why do so many efforts to engage ‘would be’ entrepreneurs start with this question?

My ideal client would answer with a resounding ‘No!’ to this question.

I want clients to be hungry and passionate about trying something new- but they definitely do not have to have a fantastic business idea.

Or even any ideas at all.

The ideas are the easy bit.

And the truth is that most new businesses are not built around some fantastically original idea but are a variation on an already proven theme.

So my ideal client has not yet found the idea that they want to turn into a business.  This way I get the chance to shape the process that they use for developing and evaluating ideas.

The alternative – a client who has what they think is a great business idea – even though they have not really thought about either the marketplace or the industry is a much more difficult proposition to work with.

However most of the enterprise support programmes that I see are based on an assumption that the client has an idea and we just need to help them work it up.

Is your service designed to help the client who has not yet got a fantastic business idea – or any ideas at all?

More on Self Belief

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Some more ideas for helping people to develop self belief and confidence.

Encourage your client to spend more time with positive people

Ask them to consider carefully who they choose to spend time with – and ask them whether they are supportive, helpful and positive or whether they are hindering. What sorts of things do they talk about? What sorts of things do they do? Is it time to think about spending more time with more positive people?

Teach the concept of ‘giving sanction’

Giving sanction means choosing carefully which messages you are going to value and act upon and which messages you are going to ignore.   Psychologists have shown that we are good at taking notice of information that fits with our world view.  If we believe that we are not very good at something we will filter out messages that suggest we are doing OK or getting better.  Conversely if we believe we are good at something we will filter out messages that suggest we are not doing so well.

Develop affirmations that are credible

An affirmation is a carefully formatted statement that asserts that something is true.  ‘I am getting better at making my pitch’ is an example of an affirmation.  So is ‘I am making real progress on developing my business’.

Now I am not saying that it is all about managing our own internal conversations and beliefs.  Clearly this is only one part of the challenge.  But it is important.  Please don’t underestimate how hard it can be to help clients to develop more positive and optimistic thinking patterns.  Often the old negative patterns will have been grooved for years.  Before you can make any real difference you will have to establish a pretty strong relationship with the client.

However I don’t many many pessimistic people who have made the transition to self employment or entrepreneurship (although I do know a few who have become pessimistic as a result!).  So grooving positive thinking seems to be an important skill for the enterprise coach.

“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” – Mahatma Gandhi